April Adventures

Playroom Progress
I love organization. So much. However keeping up with the toys has gotten a little more difficult. I have had these things on my list for a while but getting the time and money to get it all done made it take even longer. But finally, we have organized Legos and dress up!!!

There were certain drawers I fell in love with at The Container Store...which side-by-side were about 1/2 inch too wide for Ikea cubed shelves. So of course my Knight-In-Shining-Armor swoops in with, "I'll just build you a shelf." And so it began.

Thankful for this guy for working hard on this project!

And for those of you wondering about that dress up storage...we found this leather ottoman on a  local sales page. Now there are dress up clothes in it instead of kids of course. It also doubles as a stage or place to sit so we are loving it!

Moms Night
A couples of moms were really excited to try out an Escape Room, so off we were for another Mom's Night Out. We had such a fun time and went out before and after the Escape Room. You are given 1 hour to find the clues in the room. Each clue leads you to another key, another key etc. (I think there were at least 12 locks...) In this room we had to unlock a key in the floor which had fake gold, which was the end goal. I loved to see how well everyone worked as a team to get us out in time! We made it with 10 minutes to spare! (Apparently 40% or less actually make it out!) I was relieved to find out quickly that they don't actually lock us in the room to solve the clues...as soon as they told us that the idea was much more fun! :)

A Little Lake Time
We always love a chance to play in the sand when the weather is nice!















Pizza Field Trip
We have so enjoyed having a field trip each month this semester! This last one of the year was to California Pizza Kitchen. We toured the kitchen and then each child was able to make their own pizza. My favorite quote after we chatted about the day was Makin talking about watching the cook throw up the pizza dough. "I thought it was going to hit the ceiling!" Such a fun time with friends!

Spring Weather
We have headed to the park after school a few times now that the weather has warmed up. One Thursday we had an official 3rd grade get-together at the park and then a few of us went out to eat after as well. Jaedynn brought out her guitar and Lorelei and Reagan enjoyed watching her play a bit.

We headed out to fly kites one Friday afternoon with Julia and Amelia.

Brad and Makin fit in a fair amount of golf this month. Brad is organizing a school golf scramble so that has been the added motivation to get them both playing or hitting range balls more consistently. (Of course he would do this all day every day if he could!)

Bluebonnets

We headed to Ennis this year to enjoy the amazing natural beauty that is Bluebonnet season in Texas and were so glad we did. We hope to make a special trip each year as it is just so different being able to take in the beauty of fields in bloom.

We took a bit of a risk as there were chances of storms. This did put a damper on my lighting and timing for photos, but we were trying to avoid anymore cold fronts that seem to come up each weekend this month. It has been quite an up and down weather spring so far and it made it harder to get perfect weather for our visit.

We drove along one of the bluebonnet trails and loved being out in the country.
The kids loved seeing the cranes out with the cattle.

By far one of our favorite moments of the afternoon trip...stopping to pet and feed the Belgian horses.

Can you tell she is in love with horses?

Can't find what the red ones are called, but there are usually a few scattered in the sea of blue.

Hold hands...

Our girl has quite the fear of thunderstorms...so all things considered she handled it pretty well.

A few minutes before this there were people scattered throughout that field behind them...we were one of the last ones to leave when the raindrops were about to start falling but I was glad to catch this even though I couldn't keep taking shots for it to be perfect.

Phone pics giving me trouble when uploading but wanted to include them!

Strawberry Picking

I have extra time tonight, so thought I would quickly get this posted. :)

We had such a beautiful morning heading to a local strawberry patch! I haven't tried to go strawberry picking in about 7 years because our last attempt in Texas was a bust. Brittany told me this place just opened and it was great! Quite a few moms from GCA turned out so it was quite a bit of fun just running around with friends after picking.

Happy pup and kiddos while we waited for them to open the field.

Easter 2018

Easter Prep
I made a couple of tweaks to our egg-dying routine...turns out dye-free dye doesn't work worth a hoot for dying eggs. Thankfully my other new idea wasn't a total flop. The Eggmazing turned out to be a fun creative egg decorating idea that both old and young creative minds enjoyed. :) The machine spins the egg while you hold a marker to decorate. Still missed my classic eggs, so will likely go for a combo again next year.

We enjoyed one of our favorite lunches of the year...egg carton picnic lunch. :) We also made resurrection rolls for part of our Sunday breakfast.

We recycled our plastic eggs again this year. The Easter Bunny also got a note, along with a snack in the shape of a bunny (carrot ears, raisins to make a mouth and eyes, and a candy for a nose).

One more little tradition we started a couple of years ago was hiding the sugar egg. Brad is usually in charge but this year the kids wanted to hide it as well. He (hopefully) hides the egg after they go to bed and then they look for it the next morning.

If I remember correctly I saw this egg in a store and thought it was so cute but didn't know what we would use it for...and Brad came up with this idea.


Easter Day
The kids always love hunting for their baskets of goodies.

They each got a Geode and were counting down the minutes until we deemed it an acceptable hour for hammering a rock in the backyard on a Sunday morning...

We enjoyed a special breakfast.

All dolled up...

Lorelei had to have her tooth pulled in the parking lot just after lunch...
So thankful Brad gets that job.

After church we decided to go out to eat. I'm still torn about this. I love having the time off from cooking, but it doesn't quite feel like Easter without "the usual" meal. Everybody did enjoy it though, and I enjoyed not cooking and cleaning up! :) Then we had to head home to bundle up, as the temps dropped a lot more than we had anticipated. After a quick change, we headed to putt putt golf. We always have such a fun time when we do this and wish we could go every week. :) Both kids improved quite a bit from last year.

Spring!
(A bush at the golf course!)

We finished off the day with the kids playing with bubbles in the backyard. (With me wrapped up in a blanket...but can't compare to the cold they had further north!!!)

Happy Easter!!!